Three Types of Food

“We do food every single day! Conscious Eating is a big step toward Conscious Living.” – Natasa Pantovic Nuit

Today I want to talk about how we can learn to eat mindfully in order to lead a happy healthy life. We all know that having a healthy body is paramount to having a good experience in life, but the problem is that many of us aren’t really mindful of how we eat.

Many of us aren’t aware that our human organism besides the physical food that we need, requires two other foods that are very important. The first food is the physical food that we eat, the second food that our body needs is obtained through breathing, and the third food is just impressions.

Impressions are everything that we absorb through our five senses.  Obviously, the first food is very important to maintain and keep our body going, but the second food is also very important for our body because of its important link with our emotional health. The way that we breathe has a tremendous effect on our emotional well-being. The third kind of food is the impressions we get through our five senses which is the food for our psyche.

We all need to learn how to consciously take in all these different foods. We digest our physical foods to break them down so that we can use the energy and break them down further into even finer energy that our body can use to maintain itself. With our breathing many of us in our society don’t breathe correctly, we breathe from the top of our chest.  We’re high breathers, using only the upper part of our lungs. There’s a direct correlation between anxiety and our emotional well-being and our breathing patterns. We need to learn to become more conscious of our breathing.

We need to be belly breathers. Belly breathers breathe from the bottom of their belly to bring in more oxygen. It will have a direct effect on our well-being, on our mind, on our thinking process, and also on the impressions we get through our five senses.  Impressions are the food that we get for our psyche and the problem is that many of us are unconscious of everything that we’re taking in and therefore don’t digest the impressions properly and don’t extract energy from the impressions.

Someone who knows how to consciously take in visual impressions will be able to extract the energy from that impression by being conscious of taking in that impression and will be able to digest it properly and therefore won’t leave a trace in their inner space.  They’ll also be able to extract that energy and use it to be to be more aware to be more mindful.

As an example, someone who knows how to do this properly can go to an art gallery and take in the impressions consciously. This is someone who has learned to create a tremendous amount of inner space where they don’t let their thinking process come between them and the act of seeing. This means that you are not seeing the world through memory. You’ll be able to take in that impression in a pure way and by doing that you’ll extract the energy that went into making that painting.

One of the problems with all the entertainment that we have nowadays is that we are just not conscious of everything that we’re allowing into our inner space. This has a tremendous effect on us, by not being conscious of all these impressions we don’t digest them properly. By not digesting this data properly in goes into our inner space and will start to influence us in very complex ways. That’s why you have to be very mindful of the entertainment that you expose yourself to.

Getting Ready To Eat

Today’s post is just about the physical act of eating and being able to incorporate all these things I mentioned. Proper breathing and consciously taking in impressions, can help us just to have a very mindful experience while we’re eating. It will help us digest all these three foods that are necessary for our well-being. Next time that you eat, step one is just noticing how you eat. I want you to become aware of what your usual habits are when you eat.

Are you a fast eater? When I was younger that was one of the things my mom always harped on me for. She would get very upset with me because I just scarfed down my food. I didn’t enjoy my food, I was just trying to get back to the streets to play with my friends.  Just become aware of how you eat. What kind of gestures do you do? Do you like to talk while you eat? Do you chew with your mouth wide open? Just notice these things first.

Notice your posture and your gestures. How do you feel when you eat? Do you feel very happy? Is eating an emotional thing for you or do you understand that you’re just nourishing the body?  Notice all these things. The next step is when you move when you are getting ready to eat make it a ritual. As you’re preparing your food, become mindful of your body, of the sensation of your body as you’re preparing your food.

Try to be completely present in your body and be mindful of your movements. When you sit down be mindful of your feet on the ground, your back resting on the chair, your butt on the chair. Notice all those things and as you’re eating become very mindful and aware of your movements. There’s a big difference, a whole different quality to it when you do it mindfully when you’re very aware of the sensations of the movements of your body.

As you’re cutting your food bring complete awareness to that.  Also, as I said before bring awareness to your breathing and try to breathe in a more rhythmic deep way. Then when you are looking at your food try to see your food like it’s the very first time, even though this might be the thousandth time you’ve had chicken. Try to see it freshly with new eyes.

Notice the texture, the color, just notice everything you can about it, but in a way that it’s like the first time. It may be a kind of shocking experience, maybe more interesting, you’ll see a certain aliveness to your food. It may appear HD. This is taking an impression consciously.

Next, go through all your senses. As you smell the food what does that response evoke inside you?  As you start to chew your food absorb all the taste. As the food goes down your throat, follow it as it goes down into your stomach.

Learn to bring complete awareness to the act of eating. Be mindful of your breathing, take in your impressions consciously like the first time, and try to be in a quiet space where your thinking process is not coming between you and the physical act.

You don’t really need to think about eating. It’s mainly a physical activity so the more awareness you bring to it the more enjoyment you’ll also get from eating. It will become a lovely experience

Make this your daily ritual when you’re preparing your food or even at a restaurant. For many of us, eating is a mundane experience, but you’ll see that it’s been transformed into a lovely exercise for personal growth.

I hope you guys are doing well and I hope that you get some value from this post. Let me know if you practice this and how your experience goes.